Thank you mam for sharing this review. What she used to feel about blind people and blindness is a feeling felt by majority of sighted who hardly interact with blind people. I'm just reproducing couple of paragraphs from the book:
block quote My first encounter with a blind person took place thirty years ago in the waiting room of Raidio Teilifis Eireann, the Irish broadcasting company in Dublin. I was sitting on a couch waiting to do a radio interview when a blind woman came into the room with a guide dog and sat down next to me. She was moonfaced and pale and wore a red dress and black patent-leather shoes. Her thin hair was cut in blunt bangs across her forehead, and over her ears she wore the bulky headphones of a Walkman that she held lightly in her right hand. The guide dog lay on his side and stared dully at the woman's glistening shoes while she listened to music with her eyes closed. Her eyes were slightly sunken, and the lids had a darkish hue, as if lightly dusted with coal ash. I was enthralled by the pair. The woman's nose twitched repeatedly, as though she were investigating a breeze or a scent that was wafting across her face. Presently, a short bald man poked his head through a doorway and said to the blind woman, "I suppose you'd better come and operate the switch, Lisa." She unplugged the headphones from the device, removed them from her ears, stuffed them into her handbag, then abruptly lifted the Walkman to within an inch of my chin and, with bold authority, said, "Pardon me, madam. I want to be sure the machine is off. Is it off?" Startled, I took the machine in my hands, fumbled with it, accidentally turned it on, turned it off again, confirmed that it was off, and handed it back to her. She said, "Right, then," and stood up and headed for the door with no guidance from the dog, who followed slowly behind her with an air of resigned obedience. I remember wondering with intense puzzlement how the blind woman knew that I had been sitting there, for I had not moved or spoken or made any sound at all since she came in and sat down next to me. And how was she going to operate the RTE switchboard if she didn't know whether her own radio was on or off? Above all, how did she know I was a woman? She had called me madam. Why? With strong feelings of suspicion, mistrust, fascination, and resentment I watched her and the dog disappear through the doorway. block quote end On 6/1/14, Sruti disAbility Rights Centre <[email protected]> wrote: > Sharing book review of "For the Benefits of Those who can See". Thought > this will be of interest to this group. > > Shampa Sengupta > > http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/health/for-the-benefit-of-those-who-see-the-life-of-the-blind.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140526&nlid=53785415&tntemail0=y > > > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of > mobile phones / Tabs on: > http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Disclaimer: > 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the > person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; > > 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails > sent through this mailing list.. > -- Avinash Shahi M.Phil Research Scholar Centre for The Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
